[soggylaundry]

well if you look at world history, it always has been like this -- look at all those proudly-written enslavements, crimes and massacres.

But we're starting to grow out of it, and tech is helping us track down crimes that were near-impossible to track down.

[ClumsyPilot]

Very often tech is enabling these crimes. Monitoring and punishment of millions of people was much more difficult before.

[lotsofpulp]

And exposure and transparency was much more difficult before too. A tool is a tool, how it is used is the important part.

[WalterBright]

The Soviet Union had no trouble at all monitoring and punishing tens of millions of people. It also operated forced labor camps (gulags) on a vast scale.